Sony loses more money

Sony posted a surprise quarterly loss, blaming a weak stock market eating at its securities held by its financial arm, but forecast a bigger-than-expected profit this year.

The company lost $45 million in January through March. This is much better than the year before, but short of the profit expected by analysts. Sony had been able to narrow losses on the PlayStation 3 game console by cutting manufacturing costs and expanding sales and was losing out to Microsoft and Nintendo.

However, the company said that its videogame and TV operations will be profitable this year. One area of joy for the outfit had been its Cyber-shot digital cameras, VAIO PCs and Handycam video camera, helping push its operating profit up more than five-fold.